Father's Day Cards
by Loki's Scribe
Summary: Every year, Adam sent them each a card on Father's Day. Then one year, there was only one.


_Characters not mine._

_(Originally written for the father's theme challenge at comment_fic. Prompt was "Adam, Aziraphale/Crowley, Adam sends them a card every year on Father's Day.")_

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He always sent them to the bookshop, probably on the knowledge that while Crowley's flat received mail, Downstairs did not use snail mail and therefore Crowley only checked it about twice a year. Aziraphale, however, picked up the mail dutifully every day.

And noticed, every year, when two envelopes appeared on a mail holiday. And a Sunday, no less.

One envelope was always white and the other one was always black, and the black one was generally addressed to Mr. Fell, because Adam had a sense of humor, and Aziraphale always left them on the table in the back room for when Crowley would inevitably show up to tempt him to lunch or drag him off to the duck pond to discuss ethereal politics.

After a few years, Crowley started showing up on Father's Day a little bit earlier, and being less eager to drag the angel away from his dangerous collection of dusty Bibles.

The cards themselves were always short and simple and often clear jokes, addressed to Adam's godfathers "the angel and the demon", and the hand that signed them went gradually from the barely legible scrawl of a twelve-year-old boy to the downright _illegible_ writing of a teenager to the careful writing of an adult not given to good penmanship but who genuinely wants to be understood when he writes.

It was odd, because they had so rarely seen or spoke to Adam since the Apocalypse that wasn't, and they had spent the first eleven years of his life attempting to be manipulative godfathers to an entirely different boy.

And then, one year, only one envelope arrived. A gray one. Aziraphale put it on the table as usual, feeling just a bit lost. The cards didn't arrive by ordinary mail, after all, so Crowley's couldn't have been lost in the mail, and he was pretty certain his counterpart hadn't been discorporated. He would have noticed. Crowley was, after all, in the room upstairs, napping. Aziraphale had come down to get a cup of tea and wait for his counterpart to rise, since he had never gotten the hang of napping.

The water had come to a boil when the bookshop door opened. Aziraphale froze, because he was absolutely certain the place was locked and the "closed" sign hung, before he went to look.

And found a young man in his late twenties putting the latch back on the door, with the most _classical_ features Aziraphale had ever seen. And to imagine the angel had thought he had looked like a Greek God at eleven. "Adam?" he asked. "It's been a long time."

The Antichrist grinned. "Hullo, Aziraphale. Mind if I look around?"

"It's a bit early to be about, isn't it?" Aziraphale asked, glancing at the clock. It was, indeed, six forty-five in the morning. "Have you been in London long?" There were so many questions he wanted to ask Adam, but these seemed to be the most polite conversation starters.

"Business," Adam answered with a shrug. "I was headed back towards Lower Tadfield, but - "

"You still need to get a Father's Day present?" Aziraphale asked.

Adam grinned. "Not for Dad. He's borin', always feels better if I just get him a tie he'll wear once. Nah, I need something for the other one."

Aziraphale blinked. Well, he supposed that the boy _was_ also the Spawn of Satan, at that.

"I thought I might send him the Apocalypse of Peter," Adam continued. "He hijacked my television to laugh at the Inferno a coupla years ago, an' I thought I might get him the original."

Aziraphale found that while he would normally have strongly objected to giving _Lucifer_ one of his books, in this case he didn't particularly mind. He hoped Adam wasn't doing it, then scolded himself for even thinking it. Adam wouldn't have used his powers like that as a child, let alone now. "How do you intend to get it to him?" he asked instead. "It's hardly simply a message of goodwill. Which is what I. . . ." He colored slightly. "What I send to _my_ father every year."

Adam shrugged. "I'll talk to Death."

They found a relatively new copy of the Apocalypse and Aziraphale wrapped it in brown paper, talking about nothing in particular - Adam's job, his customers, how the rest of the Them were doing these days, a little bit of Crowley. He paused on that subject. "Adam?"

"Yeah?"

"You . . . only sent one card this year. I know I never thanked you properly for sending them in the first place, but - "

Adam grinned a grin that was pure Crowley. "Figured I ought to do something now that you're not pretendin' you aren't a couple, right?"

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Crowley came down eventually, in the slightly wrinkled clothes he'd shed like snakeskin last night. Aziraphale was halfway through a second cup of tea, and there was a hot mug at the place opposite him for the demon.

"It's addressed to both of us, this year," he told Crowley. "Will you open it, or shall I?"


End file.
